Some pistachio kunafa chocolate snacks

This post has been languishing in the mouldiness of draft status for months and it's now finally in the light of day. So to speak. I've gotten a few of those emergent kunafa chocolate thingys because they're kinda in many places over the past year and also to quell a curiosity by answering the question on how these fare against kunefe.

Got this cake bar from 7-11. Tasted not bad. Not excessively sweet with a sheath of chocolate around the crusty kadaifi that's layered over chocolate cake. Texture like chocolate cake with a light crunch.

Of the three, this one by Chocoelf was the most identifiable as kunefe/kunafa. Got a good crisp crunchiness from the kadaifi and chocolate wasn't overly sweet. Better tasting one of these three.

This can be found in 7-11. Okay-ish tasting, not great quality dark chocolate. There's a bit of crunch from the kadaifi but in a blind taste, I doubt anyone can tell it's kunafa. I wouldn't say it's bad but I wouldn't get it again.

Dishonesty and wastages at McDonald's

This was a random McGriddle I got because it's back on the menu. I've posted enough about them and wasn't intending to until the order mistake happened again and that kinda triggered me to just say something here about the prevalence of dishonesty and wastage at McDonald's. 

I'm pretty sure that whatever it is I wanted to talk about, doesn't just happen to me and it happens often.

In short, my McGriddle was processed incorrectly and I got a McMuffin. I wasn't paying attention at the unwrap and never realised until I took a bite of the McMuffin. After the exchange was done, I insisted that I'll keep the McMuffin with the bite and they insisted it was company policy and dumped it. Sounds familiar? I'm imagining that there'd be loads incorrect orders and wasted food by McDonalds every month.

Oh, the dishonesty part. The queue numbers for preparation and serving are time coded to meet KPIs. A large part of their KPIs for service are never met. They're just recorded as met for reporting purposes and that's why you sometimes never get your orders even though it shows that it's ready. It's ready as a record, just not for you.

KFC Breakfast Loaded Burger

Was thinking as I wrote if this post added to useless web clutter. But thank you posterity. Anyways, it's odd that the buns were cool for something assembled on order. Cool like "it wasn't microwaved long enough or at all" type of temperature. Tasted milky and cheap. Cheese wasn't melted as well. Loaded? I don't think they understand loaded. Well, another lesson learnt here.

Rat tails noodling from Ah Xi Prawn Crackers 4 years later...

In between then and now, I've probably gotten these rats tail noodles/bee tai bak/老鼠粉 probably just a few times. Nothing's change since. Greasy fried noodles, hash brown, egg and their garlicky chicken cutlet. The adjective I used was 'serviceable'. Still is. Ate this with the best sauce. There was a queue getting this so people do like their food.

Smoky Chilli Mayo McSpicy from McD

Yes the mayo was a little smoky. No I don't know where the 'chilli' in the name is derived from because...let's be real. It's a McSpicy. When you have one of this, you'd mostly taste only McSpicy and the chilli if any in the mayo sounds half assed. I'm adding on that for all these decades of making huge amounts of money selling burgers, they also suck at building one that didn't fall apart. Egg was slipping out from a couple of bites. I'd say I ate about 2/3 of the lettuce out of those sandwich because they were the first to slide off.

I like the idea of the egg but I could barely taste it.

Surprise banana pies from Dona Manis

Came across a pop up stall selling Dona Manis' banana pies. Did not resist getting half a pie. 😬 Half of that half was eliminated in short order after we reached home. In retrospect, a whole pie might have been a better idea. Love the crumbly squishy texture and the combination of bananas, nuts, coconut and butter together in the pastry. 👍🏼

This year's creamy mushroom triple cheeseburger from McD

Unlike the one from last year which had a peppery sauce, this year's rendition had a spicy sauce. Still puny. Still think half of what they're charging would be fair. But I enjoyed it. 😬

A McGriddling experience with McD

It's true. McGriddles are back. Ordered this via app and they gave me a McMuffin Stack. I went back to change with the order slip and the first thing the auntie told me was "对啊, Muffin Stack". 😳 Strike one for McD's quality control. Anyways I told her it states McGriddle. I can attribute the error to 老花. She then went to a supervisor who promptly looked at the order and the slip and said to me "Correct, this is the stack." 😳 I told her it's a McGriddle on the order and not a McMuffin. Strike two for McD's quality control. Two layers of verification in the morning have failed to correctly identify a single incorrect order. 😓

Anyways, what I really wanted to bring up was that they took the McMuffin and dumped into the bin and gave me my order. I think - the least they could have done was to ask me if I still wanted it before wasting food and shame on McD for not making an attempt not to waste food.

CNY gathering + lou hei 2025

The double double double Egg McMuffin and Samyang buldak hot sauce

Another zhng up the muffin with hot sauce for breakfast. I tried something similar previously with the Sausage Egg McMuffin.

This time round, it's the Egg McMuffin. All the add ons are kinda expensive.

Using the black bottle Samyang sauce this time.

Looks good already. And hell yeah it was satisfying. I kinda knew what to expect from the last round. Spikes of salt and heat that I was looking forward to.

Samyang's hot sauce is definitely the a way to go to elevate that breakfast muffin.

Myojo Char Mee with tobiko and sweet tamagoyaki

Tobiko and tamagoyaki were from Donki. There's enough tobiko that the briny flavour of the roe came through the salty spicy seasoning of the char mee. And yes the tamagoyaki was chilled. A sweet contrast with the noodles which were warm and savoury.

Chicken McGriddles with egg

I've never had the Chicken McGriddle before. Just a swap of the protein from their usual chicken sausage to a McChicken patty. Got this without mayo. In retrospect, I prefer the regular ones. Didn't taste bad but I don't think this McNugget-y flavour paired as well with the pancakes.

Hong Kong Jin Tian (香港錦田), Havelock Road Food Centre

Been quite a long while since I last got food from Hong Kong Jin Tian. The last time I did, might have been when they were still operating along Jalan Bukit Ho Swee. Their current premise is at Havelock Road Food Centre (#01-03 Havelock Road Cooked Food Centre, 22A Havelock Road).

This was takeaway with char siew, duck breast and duck liver. Some thoughts - char siew was dry-ish though not tough. Duck breast was pleasantly tender but there's bits of bone on some ends. The kailan was not fibrous like last time. Rice was moist and tender. Not bad as a whole.

A recent McGriddles Stack

So the last one was during the first quarter of this year. 

These are back for a while again. Eating them with pepper this time.

Tar powing whole roasted chicken from Golden Rooster

First time getting the roasted chicken from Golden Rooster to go. Finished the whole chicken myself I did. I think it's a bit better tasting when it's eaten at their shop but this survives tar pow-ing pretty well.

McGriddling in 2024

Feels like they've shrunk. I remember McGriddles being somewhat more substantial. I also remember saying this. The hotcake buns appear to be dryer today and I'm not tasting the "maple syrup" much. Didn't get any serviettes for a takeaway. They're operating on the cheap it seems cutting everything they can get away with. It's otherwise a guilty pleasure that gets more expensive by the year.

Samurai Burger from McD

My first Samurai Burger. It's been around since more than a decade ago but I've never had it because it never looked good to me. For some reasons, the burger's packaged to be unwrapped with the bottom up.

The sauce looked/smelled/tasted like some sort of teriyaki. It's sweet with a bit of creaminess from the mayo on the beef.

Meat was fully cooked through. I've seen some pink before in others so mine was just overdone. It's edible but I don't think it's good and definitely overpriced. This will be my first and last.

Delivery from Zazz Pizza

Our first time getting home delivery for Zazz Pizza (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八). We learnt a lot about how much quality suffers with delivery.

Their braised pork pasta survived pretty well. While it definitely wasn't as piping hot and didn't taste as freshly off the pan, I couldn't complain.

This was their mixed mushroom with added on anchovy and clams. Seemed like significantly lesser mushrooms than a previous experience. It was a bad move with those clams too because of the broken layers off the shells which left crunchy bits strewn around the pie. The clams were nice but the bits of shell weren't a good experience. My bad for assuming that those clams would come without shells.

Finally tried their Bismark and it didn't feel as impressive as the pictures we've seen. I believe this slightly disappointing experience was due to the chewier and harder crust that was a result of delivery. We've never had them like this in all the times we've eaten at the shop.

Black Pepper Cheese Filet-O-Fish from McD

This was a pathetic attempt even for McD. It's as sad as gimmicky goes and a waste of money.

While I know enough not to have an iota of faith with their social media...

...shouldn't there be a legal watchdogs to prevent deliberate deception in advertisements? Where's that oozy pepper cheese?

It's inside. A miserly smudge. Could taste a bit of pepper there. But coming from the entity which has made the McPepper/Prosperity Burger, the black pepper moniker for this just didn't live up to even low expectations.